


The Sound of the Universe

by athousandwinds



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-26
Updated: 2010-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-06 17:40:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the beginning, there was the word, and the word was, "Hello".</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sound of the Universe

In the beginning, there was the word. It was a very simple word, especially for Gallifreyans, who favoured long, silly names. It was a greeting; it was a recognition of life. It was a single breath, a single note that hummed in Her core.

It was,

"Hello."

\---

 

"Where do you think we should go?" he said, but not to Her. The girl, one of hundreds who had touched Her walls, touched Her console, had folded her arms and was looking up at him with ordinary scepticism.

"Somewhere warm," she suggested. He turned back to Her and spread his hands over Her. His hearts were beating in quadruple time; anticipation.

"Somewhere warm," he murmured. "Any suggestions?"

She sent them to the fire-ravaged planet of Expazia, where the indigenous people were so desperate for rain that they'd sold half the planet to a renegade Gallifreyan. She made them both happy, but him more so.

\---

 

She changed as he needed Her to, not as he wanted Her to. The siren scream from Gallifrey had hurt them both and She had shrieked ever louder, echoing the call back out into the beautiful silence of space, and he had clutched his head, sobbing.

But the urgency of the call had not been missed, which was its purpose after all, and even as She materialised in Gallifrey, She was growing, changing, refitting Herself for Her own purpose. When he returned from the presidential residence, he stared up, around, at Her.

"You look like a warship," he said.

She could not reply, but he heard the hum of Her engines and knew it was the sound of Her breath, thrumming, loving him.

\---

The purpose of Time And Relative Dimensions In Space is to allow Gallifreyans-who-are-breeders to travel in time. If they did nothing more than that, they would be only machines and made, not grown. A TARDIS grows up around its people and loves them; it is not indestructible to protect itself.

She has grown up with him. She does not remember the Gallifreyans who lived within Her before; She was young, then. But nine centuries is long, even for a TARDIS and She is canny in his ways.

When he sets co-ordinates for the sun, their sun, She balks.

"Please," he says, as if he's never asked Her for anything before. "Please."

The sun almost burns Her, but that might be because he is shivering. And then they burn together. All together, because down below, far away, the Gallifreyans are burning too.

\---

 

Nine hundred years – closer to a millennium, but he has always liked to pretend – have taught Her tricks and She brings him away safely. His face has sharpened and thinned; more like a skull than ever since he found Her. The soft, floppy clothes burned with what he thinks remained of his soul.

He doesn't know it, but his soul is in the jacket he wears, which the last human who followed him left behind. She knows. This person loved him. She knows. They all did.

\---

 

She loves him first and last and best of anyone. She lives for him as he lives for the universe: what ugliness She finds in him means nothing, with understanding. An irascible old man, a loud-mouthed boy, a sly manipulator: this is he. A friendly jokester, a gentle rock, a bewildered dreamer: this is he.

There are no Lords of Time: what Time has given, Time may take away. But She can only give.

So She takes the girl's body. She steps out of Herself, loving his love, sprawled on the floor. She smiles,

and says,

"My Doctor."


End file.
